Saint Mary's beacon., 1887-10-06

did he yemschik by our help. sxtri.
cate his half buried team, and at last
through a rift in the whirling flakes
We saw the gaunt black and white
post that marked the station at which
f. our journey for the night ended. II
anything could have astonished stolid
Pavel, the German Jew who managed
the station, the arrival Of travellers
! on such night would have done it..
! As it was, instead of that best well
come which one hopes for at an inn,
We were near being turned away.
/ Had he something good to supper?
Nitchevo' nothing. Something warm
to drink? 'Nitchevo. was there plenty
of game? Still 'Nitchevo, and so to
every question until you might f,ncy
'Nitchevo was the only word in the
Russian language. as. thanks to its
various meanings, it almost might be.
That was a dreary night We passed at
Sultanovka. The bitter cold seemed
to take shape and size, and torture
and grip US with the personal malice
OF living foe. The wooded bedsteads
groaned and thawed slowly as we lay
upon them, until great beads of mois.
ture stood at every crevice in the
woodwork. Outside. the spirits of
wind and storm were abroad to meet
old Christmas on his way from the
frozen North with nothing more than
the one dim light of the station, gleam-
ing out over the waste, like the Cv-
cloPs' eye. to watch them.
at was early dawn when, with
heads racked by the pain caused by
the sitting fumes of the charcoal stove
and by want Of rest, We sailed out
with our guns into the icy freshness
Of the new day.
"As the morning broke, the wind
went down, and the drift resettling
on the steppe, gave us a clear view all
around. From time to time as we
came with noiseless tread into some
sheltered balkan, puff of snow would
fly up into the air, and form scarcely
less white than its surroundings would
hurry away, across the waste, or dye
1t with its crimson life-blood.
Here and there We came to tiny
pools where, on the frozen surface,
grou?s Of teal or duck were sitting
with ruiiled plumes, longing for the
liquid element, which seemed for the
nonce to have vanished from the earth
altogether.
by noon our game sacks had grown
heavy, and we turned our heads to-
ward home, satisfied that Christmas
on the steppes was a little less cheer
less than Christmas in the town.
with our return our troubles be-
gan.
The traitor wind that for a while
had sunk to rest now rose like a giant
refreshed, whirling the fine snow in
powder from its resting places, and
binding the eyes that sought the
homeward way.
Hour after hour We plodded on in
the eyer-increasing darkness Of drifted
snow, nothing visible above or around
save the opaque veil that hid the
world from cur eyes.
Wilder and wilder grew the wind,
catching your light form in his rough
embrace, and whirling YOU in a stag
gering dance over the snow. l see
you now almost as plainly as l saw
you then, in my minds eye, at one
moment wrapped and buried in your
bourka, the next shut out from it, all
legs and arms, as if it would have
been torn from your shoulders BY the
wayward giant.
Go home, go home, the wind
seemed ever whistling in our ears but
the binding snow Knocked the good
advice.
For you rest seemed near, but such
rest as curdled the blood to think OF.
Weakened by want of sleep. wearied
by heavy toll, the grip of the icy wind
had got hold upon your heart, and
that dread downsiness-sure prelude,
it yielded to, to the everlasting sleep
seemed fast-growing upon you,
numsing your energies, and making
life appear boon not half so much to
be desired as the soft cold couch in
the drift at your feet Twice your
weak knees failed, and you sank, how
softly, into the snow. Twice | re-
turned and daagged you from your
self-selected shrOud, supporting and
driving you forward, in spite of your
supplications aud reproaches.
But my own strength was waning,
nv courage failing, in he hard and
bitter battle with the merciless cold.
"Thara wsra davils abroad that day